The Singapore Parliament is a white
elephant
Ladies and Gentlemen,
If you ever thought Singapore is a parliamentary democracy, it is
not. It is a one party state, with Lee Kuan Yew's PAP in power
since 1959, no less than 50 years; and with him wielding absolute
power and authority. It is a dictatorship.
It is true, Singapore has a Parliament with elections held every
five years, but in truth these have no real effect at all. All
civil institutions including the judiciary, the civil service, the
police and the media take their orders directly from Lee Kuan Yew.
To Lee, Parliament is merely a nuisance.
The Singapore opposition should not raise their hopes if they win
additional Parliamentary seats other than the miserable 2 they
presently have. Even with 10, 20 or even 30 seats, and regardless
of how many Parliamentary speeches they make; as long as Lee has a
Parliamentary majority of one, he will still call the shots,
because he alone has civil society under his thumb.
And even, in the unlikely chance that the opposition wins a
parliamentary majority, it is more than likely that Lee will still
continue to rule, because, as was said, the institutions that
matter, the judiciary, the civil service, and everything else take
their orders from this man.
If you realize the gravity of the situation, you may feel, and
rightly so, that Singapore is a hopeless case. That you are
destined by Providence to live as Lee's slaves and there is nothing
you can do about it. But this is not so, and there is hope;
abundant hope.
The way to bring about change in today’s Singapore is not by
winning seats in Parliament, even though it is good; it is by
demanding justice from each institution of government, and holding
them to account for each transgression of your rights.
This is what has to be done. If a Malay or Indian is not permitted
to reside at the place of his choice by the HDB because of illegal
racial quotas violative of the Constitution, the aggrieved citizen
should refuse to accept it, and protest against it; taking pictures
and videos of his protest and putting them up in blogs throughout
the island, publicly exposing the injustice.
The idea is to embarrass the government where they clearly are
violative of your rights. The constitution provides for equality
and prohibits racial discrimination. And in such a case, this
government would find it impossible to justify the
discrimination.
If a citizen is illegally deprived of his CPF retirement savings,
the aggrieved citizen should refuse to take no for an answer,
protest at the very spot, take pictures and videos of it and post
it all over the Internet.
If a Singaporean is deprived of his job because he was displaced by
a foreigner willing to accept lower pay, he should stand outside
Ministry of Manpower or other ministry and protest his loss of a
job, take pictures of it and post it on the Internet.
If the Tak Boleh Tahan protestors of March 15, 2008 have still not
been returned their cell phones which the police had illegally
confiscated, they should protest outside Cantonment Police Station
and not leave until their cell phones are returned, photograph and
film the entire protest and put it up on blogs all over the
island.
If you see an employer discriminating against older workers,
protest at the spot, take pictures of it and post it all over the
island.
The purpose of this exercise is to shame these public institutions
into respecting the law and treating everyone fairly and
impartially. At present, the HDB feel they can discriminate against
Malays and Indians because Lee has ordered them to do it; their
illegal actions become lawful because of Lee's authority over them.
The same with the CPF violating the law, the Ministry of Manpower
and every other public institution.
It is quite clear that Lee's main tool to remain in absolute
dictatorial control is his absolute power over the judges and the
newspapers. If Singaporeans protest outside the state controlled
newspaper offices, they will be shamed by their misdeeds being
exposed through blogs and videos.
It appears to me, the energy of those opposing this one man
dictatorship should be directed to the institutions of civil
society such as the judiciary to force them to stop oppressing the
citizens. In order to do this, technology has turned out to be a
Godsend. The power of the Internet is something authoritarian
governments cannot overcome, and citizens should use it to the
fullest to force their governments to see reason.
The Internet has in fact made a great difference for the better
even in authoritarian Middle Eastern countries. I have heard in
Egypt, even a country under the iron grip of Mubarak, had to
concede a little, when a blogger took a video of the police
arresting some people and abusing them with their batons, and put
it up on his website. Immediately thereafter, his website began to
get several thousand hits each day, with almost the entire country
up in arms about the incident, forcing the Mubarak government to
take action against those officers. Were it not for the blog,
nothing would have happened to the policemen.
Riad al-Turk, a Syrian opposition leader suffered many years of
imprisonment for his opposition to the government. But with the
Internet exposing the injustice publicly, the Syrian government
eventually had no choice but to release him.
It is for these reasons that the Lee Kuan Yew government is
terrified of public protests. In Singapore, a small built up,
completely wired island, which depends on international trade and
business; any adverse publicity involving the denial of human
rights can be very damaging. And realizing this, the opposition
should take full advantage of this and push this government to its
limit of either accepting the truth or resisting it at their
peril.
They are now clearly in the defensive as their actions show. You
will recall, some years ago at the CPF protests in front its
offices in Robinson Road, to disperse a mere 4 unarmed peaceful
protestors holding nothing more than placards, the police officer
John Baptist, a man totally undeserving of such a biblical name,
deployed his Red Maria Police vans with about 50 armed police in
full riot gear!
When such an over reaction, almost comical, on the part of the
police was captured on camera and prominently displayed all over
Singapore on the Internet, they realized that they had egg on their
faces. Ever since then, even for the larger protest of 50 at Tak
Boleh Tahan, the police began to use the soft touch instead; this
time no riot police, no police uniforms and women plain clothes
police were used to arrest the protestors!
This government is finding it increasing difficult to deny the
legitimate demands of its citizens when their actions are being
glaringly exposed to public scrutiny through the Internet. This is
something this government cannot overcome since it cannot stop the
Internet. No matter what, the Internet is here it stay and Lee
whether he like it or not has to live with it. And he is finding
that increasingly uncomfortable.
Since Dr. Chee's party now has extensive experience in organizing
protests, protestors could collaborate with him to hold it at the
offending location, pre-arrange with video cameraman and
photographers and immediately put up the images on the Internet. If
the protests attract police retaliation, their injustice can be
visually exposed. It is my belief that if this done on a sustained
basis, this or any other oppressive government will have to listen.
They have no choice.
Trying to change Singapore through winning more Parliamentary seats
may eventually be possible. Change may happen if Lee is dead or if
the opposition wins a majority. But if you want to make it happen a
little faster, protest take pictures and keep embarrassing this
government. That way, you leave them no choice.
Gopalan Nair
http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/2008/04/